


bleeding gold

by Marianne_Dashwood



Series: we are but dust and shadow [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials Fusion, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Daemon Separation, Daemon Touching, Daemons, Giant Spiders, His Dark Materials Inspired, M/M, Non Consensual Daemon Touching, Post-Apocalypse, spider monster thing, uuuhhhh its only briefly described but i feel like i should still give you a heads up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:55:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21725602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marianne_Dashwood/pseuds/Marianne_Dashwood
Summary: Jon and his daemon, after the end of the world
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Series: we are but dust and shadow [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1546738
Comments: 18
Kudos: 217





	bleeding gold

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [soul to soul, between you and me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21362077) by [FireFlashMoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireFlashMoon/pseuds/FireFlashMoon). 



> As always, a big big shoutout to the Magnus Writers for being so lovely and encouraging!
> 
> And a particular thank you to @dewdropstar_ on twitter for letting me steal your daemon characters and yell to you about this au and all my ideas for it (even though it is techically your au!)
> 
> Come find me in all the usual places (MJDashwood on twitter and marianne-dash-wood on tumblr!)

At least Korinna is with him, Martin thinks. She is curled into his arms, shaking in terror, but she is here, her claws are dug into his arm through his jacket, but that means she is here, she is with him, and they are not alone, even as the world falls around them. 

The cottage is up ahead, thankfully, incredibly, still standing, even with the windows blown out, and the door swinging off its hinges. 

“Martin!” Korinna shouts, sudden, and he stops short, staring at the broken glass at the doorstep, and the broken, still form of Neith. 

“Oh god,” He says, and drops to his knees, Korinna hopping down and pawing gently, fretfully at Neith. “Korinna, is she-”

“She’s still here.” Korinna says. “She’s still here, so Jon is… Jon is alive.”

“But she is _here._ ” Martin insists, hands hovering inches from Neith. Despite all that Jon and Neith have entrusted him with their soul, Martin still hesitates. “She’s too far…”

“It could, it could be an avatar thing.” Korinna says. “But we don’t have time, Martin. We can’t stay here.”

“Yes, yes, you’re right.” Still he hesitates. “Should I…?”

“We can’t leave her here!” Korinna says.

Carefully, with aching gentleness, Martin scoops Neith into his hands. She is so small, so delicate compared to Jon. Complementary to him, Martin always thought. But now she just looks fragile, feather light and frail, as she lies in the palm of Martin’s hands. 

Her wings are different, Martin notices, to what they were when he left. When he awoke this morning, she was white and grey and black, and the false eyes on her back stared back, unblinking. Now she is streaked white, almost bleached with the colour, all the rest drained out of her, and the false eyes are a cruel, pitch black, with none of the gentle variation of this morning.

And gently, her wings flutter against his skin, and still now, it sends a charge of electricity through him, but unlike this morning, it is muted, weakened. 

“Neith?” He asks. 

“Jon…?” He hears her say, so faint it is almost inaudible against the howling winds, and it is this that propels him inside, this and the tug of his and Korinna’s bond, as she hops forward and out of the range of his awareness. 

The Lonely… stretched them, for lack of a better term. This is the first time she has tested it since, and his skin prickles with unease, even before she shouts for him. 

“I found him!” She shouts, and Martin feels her panic in his chest, feels the shocks of electricity as she presses her small body into Jon, tries to wake him alone. 

Martin stuples forward, over broken glass and splinters and in his hands, Neith speaks words that send more terror through him than anything outside. 

“Martin?” Her voice is weak, as fragile as her body. “Martin, Martin, I can’t…” Her tiny body shudders, panics. “I can’t feel him, Jon, I can’t feel my Jon, where are you, _where is he?”_

“He’s here.” Martin says, and he hadn’t even realised that the Archivist’s compulsion spread to Neith as well. He kneels next to Jon’s body, Korinna on Jon’s chest, clawing at his top, pressing her nose to the bleeding scratches on his neck, down his cheeks, her fur turning crimson. “Neith, he’s here.”

“I can’t feel him!” She shrieks, shrill and terrified but still too weak to do more than flutter uselessly in his palm. “I tried, we couldn’t stop, I couldn’t stop him, and I tried to find you but it hurt _so much_ , and now I can’t feel him, Martin, he’s gone!”

“It’s, it’s okay.” Martin says, tries to be reassuring. He puts a hand on Jon’s chest. “He’s breathing, Neith, he, he just has to wake up.”

“Jon.” Korinna says, nosing at his face, getting increasingly more frantic as Martin tries to hold it together for Neith. “Jon, please. Wake up, wake up, wake _up_! Jon, Jon, Jon, WAKE UP!” 

She turns to Martin, pleading. “Do something!”

Martin winces, raises a hand. “Sorry, Jon.” He says, and slaps him. Neith doesn’t even flinch, but Jon startles awake with a gasp, and Martin feels a rush of relief ran through him. 

“Uh– Wh– Martin? Korinna?” Jon asks, and Neith whines in his hands. He sounded dazed, and his eyes are hazy and unfocused in the dark of the end of the world. 

“Jon?” Martin asks, keeping Neith in one hand as he presses the other to Jon’s back as he sits up, Korinna still clinging to his shirt and showing no signs of letting go. 

“Wha– Wh–” Something slides into place behind Jon’s eyes, and his face becomes etched with terror. “Oh god. What– What happened?”

“I, I don’t, I don’t know; everything– “ Martin chokes back a sob, “It’s all gone wrong! Neith-”

“Help me up!” Jon says, and he cups a hand under Korinna to support her as Martin holds him. His legs shake, and he leans heavily into Martin as he stares out of the window. He doesn’t even see Neith, struggling to fly in Martin’s open palm. 

“Jon…” She whimpers, but Jon’s eyes are locked on the outside of the window.

“Oh god.” He says, horrified, shattered into a million pieces at the destruction beyond the cottage’s four walls. 

“I-Is it just here?” Korinna asks.

“No.” Jon says. “No, it’s everywhere. They’re all here now. I can feel _all of it.”_

“Jon, please…” Neith whispers. “Jon, I can’t feel you.”

Martin holds her close, and holds Jon close, and watches Jon’s face. It’s no longer _just_ terrified, and that scares Martin more than anything. 

“Jon. Jon, w-we’re scared. Neith is… Neith is _terrified_ , Jon.”

Jon shakes his head. “The whole world is afraid, Martin. Because of me.”

“ _No.”_ Neith cries, broken. “No, Jon, _please_.”

Jon, horrifyingly, sickeningly, ignores her, and stares, almost with adoration at the terror in the sky. 

“And the Watcher,” He says, awestricken, “Drinks it all in.”

Jon blinks. The sky blinks back. Martin shrinks under its gaze, but he refuses to move. He will not let Jon go. 

“Jon?” Korinna says, more terrified than Martin had heard her in the Lonely. 

“Look at the sky, Martin.” Jon says, and it is not only Jon talking, Martin knows that now. His voice cracks in horror and joy, this rapture shaking every part of his being, tears streaming down grinning cheeks from horrified eyes. “Look at the sky. It’s looking _back_.”

The laughter, the sobs rattle Jon’s frame, and in his hands, Neith weeps, and the eyes on her wings stare back at Martin. 

Jon sobs, laughs, until it turns into broken, shattered would-be wails, if he had the strength, and he crumples in Martin’s arms, strung out and grief-wrought. 

“N-Neith…” He finally chokes out, tears and blood mixed into Korinna’s fur. 

“I have her.” Martin says, just as Neith, as broken as her human, says, “ _Jon"_ and flys, exhausted to land on the back of Jon’s hand. 

He blinks down at her and his face caves in grief. “I can’t- Neith, is that -?”

“It’s me.” Neith says, bone-deep exhaustion in her voice, “Jon, I can’t either. But it’s still me. It’s still you.”

“Jon,” Martin says, almost too terrified to ask. “Jon, can you-?”

“The bond is… The statement, the ritual.” Jon’s voice frays like a ribbon. “It must have, we’re-”

“We are **_not_ ** severed.” Neith says, more fierce than Martin has ever heard her, even as she shakes. “We’re _not,_ Jon. I refuse.”

Jon shakes his head. “It’s not something we can just, deny, Neith, the bond is _gone,_ you’re **_gone_**.”

“I’m still here!” Neith says. She flys again, settling herself over Jon’s cheek, wings covering the long scratches across his face. “I’m still here.” She repeats. 

“You heard the statement.” Jon’s voice cracks. “I’m not a person. I’m an _Archive_.”

“Jon-!” Martin says, a protest, but bites down on his words when Neith speaks.

“Don’t you dare say that.” Neith says, her tiny body shaking with rage, “Don’t you dare say that to me. We are not like them. We won’t be like them. You promised me, Jon.”

Korinna leans up now, resting herself against Jon’s other cheek. She, and Martin have ideas about what Neith is talking about. Jane Prentiss didn’t have a daemon anymore, just echoes of a soul buried in her skin. Helan and Micheal’s daemon’s were twisted and coiled together, a nightmare monster lost in corridors upon corridors. Jon had spoken of his revulsion at the flesh covered clockwork daemons of the circus of the other. 

Avatars didn’t have daemons. They had mockeries, or they had none at all. And Neith, changed as she was, was still Neith. So that meant Jon was still Jon. 

Jon gasps quietly at this skin to skin contact, and the familiar rush races through Martin again as his hand gently strokes Korinna’s back. 

“Korinna,” He says, haltingly. “I can feel -”

“And I can still feel Neith.” Martin says, quietly. “She’s not gone, Jon. And neither are you.”

Jon looks at him then, properly and for the first time since the end of the world. 

“You should go.” He says, and he might as well have punched Martin in the gut. “I’m not… I’m not _safe_. I caused this.”

“Jon.” Martin says. “If you think we’re going to leave you now, you haven’t been paying attention.”

He reaches out a hand, and strokes a thumb across Neith’s wing, light as a summer's breeze. Korinna snuffles into Jon’s shoulder, and he sucks in a breath. 

“I made my choice a long time ago, Jon.” Martin says. “And I’m never going to leave you.”

Jon sobs then, pitches forward into Martin and breaks all over again, and Martin holds him, holds onto the anger building in his stomach, his lungs, his heart, and swears he will kill Jonah Magnus for this. 

The eye stares at the two humans and their daemons, and turns its attention to more interesting, less broken things. 

* * *

It’s worse some days than it is on others. Somedays, Jon opens his mouth and all that comes out is fritz and recycled statements. Fog clouds his brain and static scratches under his skin, and even Korinna feels like she is on the other side of the ocean. Those days, the blindfold is a necessity rather than a preference. Those days, he holds Martin’s hand tight, squeezes once for yes, twice for no and tries to ignore the black hole gnawing at his heart where Neith should be. 

Other days are kinder. He is allowed to have words, his own words, and stolen kisses. He is allowed to hold Korinna, something he isn’t sure he is allowed to do anymore, as an Archive. He is allowed to feel what it is like to hold Martin’s soul in his scarred hands, have her press whiskery kisses to his ruined cheeks. 

Neith, where she used to be, is still a black hole. But where she rests in Martin’s hair, on his skin, in the hollow of his throat, sometimes, he feels the same overwhelming love that she does. 

And sometimes, that is almost enough to convince him he is still human. 

The many legged things in front of them is certainly not human. Spiders shouldn’t grow that big and yet it is that big, huge and hulking and Martin isn’t complaining about them trying to kill this spider. Instead, he is swinging with the fire axe that they salvaged from a DIY shop, shouting at Jon to get back because it is a Bad Day for Jon. (Not a Very Bad Day, he hasn’t worn the blindfold today on Korinna’s insistence, but bad enough that words are difficult and the emptiness where his soul should be echoes in it’s loneliness)

The Archive wants to see. Jon wants to bury his head in Korinna’s fur when the spider can’t find them, because every time Martin swings more spiders ooze from the cracks like blood. 

What Jon does instead, because one of its legs smacks Martin and knocks him backwards and makes Korinna cry out in pain, is pull out the pistol they found on what was left of an armed response unit, and shoot, once, twice, three times, hitting it in all the places he Knows will hurt it the most.

Good news: It turns away from Martin. 

Bad news: It turns towards them, instead, and Korinna cried out in fear.

The spider starts to advance, legs feeling out the path in front of them, and Jon feels the Knowledge desert him as the shaking returns to his hands and his next shot goes wild.

Neith, having been hidden in Martin’s hair, flies up and starts trying to distract the spider, darting in front of it’s many eyes. It pauses in its pursuit; enough time for Martin to scramble back and hold out his hand to Jon.

“Jon, come on!”

Jon staggers to his feet, and sprints towards Martin; they can’t kill this thing, but they can run, as long as Neith keeps it distracted, and she is small enough to dart out of the way when she needs to follow and-

Something _wrenches_ in his chest and Jon stumbles, falls to his knees with a choked cry of pain and wrongness and for the first time he feels something in that terrible awful hole in his chest and it _hurts_. 

Neith screams, high and piercing and Jon knows, in a way that is in no way Beholding, that one of the spider’s limbs has shot out and grabbed her, and is holding her tight, and the pain is excruciating. 

Martin is shouting, Korinna is scrabbling, clawing at him frantically, but he cannot move. All the strength has been pulled out of him as this monstrous hand digs into him and twists at his heart, his soul, something has his Neith, something is _holding_ his Neith and his whole world spins with the shock of it. It is wrong. It’s so wrong, he has never felt so wrong.

Neith is writhing in the creature’s grasp, and he feels, _he feels_ her horror and disgust and sheer revulsion at the chitin holding her fast, he could feel it constricting, crushing, and he falls to his hands and knees, retching in mute horror. Hands on him; gentle, insistent, pulling. But he can’t, he cannot, and the only word that he can manage to form is; “Neith, Neith, _Neith_ -”

And then he cannot breathe, because Neith cannot breathe. He gasps and chokes and reaches for his daemon with a desperation he hasn’t felt since the world ended. 

At least he will die whole. At least he will die complete, with his and Neith’s hearts beating frantically, in panic, in fear, but together, _together._

All at once, it falls away, and Jon collapses onto the road, boneless, to exhausted to even shake as the spider dissolves into black, the limb holing Neith falling to the ground and releasing her as it fades into nothing. Martin stands, axe buried in nothing but what was once spider, but that doesn’t matter because he felt Neith, he felt her, his soul, and he still feels her when she slams into him as hard as a small moth can. 

“Never again.” She says, desperate as she presses herself to his skin. “Never, never, never, never again.”

Martin and Korinna seem so far away, on the other end of the world, as Jon and Neith cling to each other, as he holds her to his heart and feels it beat in tandem with hers, survivors of this awful car crash of a moment. They call out to them, distantly, but all Jon thinks of in that moment is Neith, and their bond, and the return of his soul to him. 

The feeling with fade, in time. The aching black hole in his chest is not gone, not by any means. But it no longer feels insurmountable. More like a wound that needs stitches, rather than a gaping void with no way of filling it. For the first time, the pain is soothed, a balm instead of a burn.

The feeling fades, but Jon knows it will come back. 

For the first time, since the end of the world, he feels human again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave kudos/comments if you enjoyed!!


End file.
